This invention concerns fencing and more particularly fencing in which a metal fencing fabric such as chain link is attached to line posts to create a fence.
Such fence construction is widely used in large projects such as airports, prisons, corporate facilities, etc. Such fencing fabric comes in large rolls and the present inventors have been issued U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,718 for apparatus for handling and dispensing fencing fabric from a roll during erection of the fence.
It sometimes becomes necessary to handle unwound fabric, as when large lengths of fabric is removed, replacing fabric or when rewinding unneeded dispensed fabric.
Chain link fabric is heavy and stiff and manual handling of unrolled fabric is slow and difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,782 describes a vehicle mounted powered rewinder for snow fencing, in which an electric motor drives a wind up drum at a constant speed. The fence is wound up onto the drum, which is mounted so as to allow the wound up roll to be removed from the drum.
This design is effective for snow fencing which is usually a single height and due to the presence of the wooden slats, is stiff across its width and thus easier to rewind. In the case of chain link or other fencing fabric, it can be of many different heights (widths when lying on the ground) and a rewinder should be able to adapt to all of these sizes.
Fencing fabric is less stiff across its width and is prone to misalignment and kinking when attempted to be rewound.
Especially when the roll becomes large, the linear speed of the fencing still on the ground being pulled onto the roll increases substantially creating increased hazards to the operator or bystanders. The possibility of misalignment of the turns of the rewound fabric also increases with the speed at which winding process.
The powered rewind method itself presents some risks and safety measures alleviating some of these risks is desirable.
The aforementioned U.S. patent describes a complex design in order to allow removal of wound fencing from a wind up drum.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle mounted powered fencing fabric rewinder configured to conveniently accommodate fencing fabric of varying widths.
It is another object to provide such a rewinder which guides the fabric during rewinding to insure alignment of successive windings.
It is still another object to provide such a rewinder which does not create unduly high rates of linear speed of the fabric material as the roll becomes larger.
It is yet another object to provide a simplified arrangement for releasing the wound up fabric from a core on which it is wound.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a powered rewinder which has safety features protecting the operator and bystanders.